This book offers a unique insight into a revolution in software development that allows model specifications to be fully and efficiently translated into code. Using the most widely adopted, industry standard, software modelling language, UML, the reader will learn how to build robust specifications based on OMG's Model Driven Architecture (MDA). From there, the authors describe the steps needed to translate the Executable UML (xUML) models to any platform-specific implementation. The benefits of this approach go well beyond simply reducing or eliminating the coding stage - it also ensures platform independence, avoids obsolescence (programming languages may change, the model doesn't) and allows full verification of the models by executing them in a test and debug xUML environment. This is an excellent reference for anyone embarking on what is surely the future of software development for medium and large scale projects.